Fashion is as famous for its outsized personalities as its outsized skirts. The drama of a neckline is birthed loudly and often accompanied  by an unceremonious  firingby the drama of a genius no one could hope to understandlet alone care to try. Below are five profiles in the kind of batshit crazy you just cant teach. This elegance is learned, kids.

 

"His look is an extremely conscious metaphor for his philosophy of fashion and life: Here, watch as I bring together the old, in my tall eighteenth-century collar and bizarre powdered hair, with the new, as seen in my ponytail and $2,500 Agatha leather pants, 'the most expensive leather pants in the world,' he declares, with a laugh exactly like Count Chocula's in its length and ridiculousness."

on Karl Lagerfeld and how to craft a professional image from Karl Lagerfeld, Boy Prince of Fashion, Vanessa Grigoriadis

"There [at Vogue] Talley will sometimes perform a kind of boss-man theatrethrow papers about, slam telephones down, noisily expel the incompetent. 'This is too much. What story do we need to be working on, children? What story? Let's get cracking, darlings, on fur. Fuh, fuh, fuh. One must set the mood around the fuh and the heels, the hair, the skin, the nipples under the fuh, the hair around the nipples, the fuh clinging to the nipples, sweat, oysters, champagne, régence!' "

on André Leon Talley and the importance of a strong work ethic from The Only One, The New Yorker, Hilton Als

Is anyone else dying over how cute this picture is?

"There's a stir at the entrance of the terminal as a silver Mercedes-Benz pulls up, followed by a minivan. Valentino emerges from the car in a Prince of Walesplaid suit under a shearling coat, with a flowered scarf around his neck, and enters the terminal, walking slightly ahead of his retinue. His tan is rich and close in color to his chestnut-brown hair, which is blown out to immobile perfection. He has a warm smile and bright, heavy-lidded eyes, which are partially hidden behind rose-colored aviators. After he and Giammetti greet each other with a kiss on each cheek, we proceed to the airplane. Three buses are needed, one to move Valentino, Giammetti, and staff, another for luggage, and a third to transport five of Valentino's six pugsMilton, Maude, Monty, Margot, and Molly."

on Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti s love of economic travel from So Very Valentino, Vanity Fair, Matt Tyrnauer

"The morning of this summer's haute-couture show, Galliano put on a pair of carefully distressed bluejeans with perfectly frayed cuffswhich covered his sandals but not the toenails he had recently painted a glossy shade that he calls 'cosmic blue.' Galliano's personal hair-and-makeup team had been briefed in advance on the look he wanted to achieve, which was inspired by the evolution of dance. "I am feeling very Spanish tango dirty creepy with oily black hair," he said. His stylist got the message: he glued a stringy goatee onto Galliano's chin and trimmed it to a neat triangle; after that, he spent half an hour curling Galliano's hair and then applied a thick coat of mascara to the lashes beneath his dark-brown eyes."

on John Galliano s morning beauty regimen from "The Fantasist," The New Yorker, Michael Specter

"Balenciaga possibly thought that Dior got too much sheer pleasure out of high fashion, which in his own view was an art on a par with painting, sculpture, and architecture, to be taken with the utmost seriousness. It was not something in which you could faire le ponchinelle, 'do a Picasso' (in those days Picasso often called himself the 'clown of art'). But Balenciaga certainly did not regret the success of the new look. He was a businessman, and a very astute one, and he recognized that it had done wonders for the Parisian fashion industry and that everyone involved in it, himself perhaps most of all, had benefited from the publicity. He certainly did not see Dior as a rival, and he had no fear that his own claims to excellence would be overlooked. Dior dressed the rich, Balenciaga the very rich."

on the fundamental difference between Cristóbal Balenciaga and Christian Dior from "Cut Against the Bias," This Recording, Paul Johnson

Go head, queens!

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